Afonso Salcedo (Dreamworks, Pixar)

Date:

Monday 25/February 14:00

Roads. Frames. Dots. A talk in three acts.

From all the different roads travelled, the obstacles we face, the traffic jams you get into and even the accidents you deal with, all come to define your career, your success, the way you view things and the way you learn. Part of being a visual artist, of working with frames, images, still or in motion, is precisely what you have learned in life, what you observe, what you see and of course, the story you want to tell to other people.

We’ll talk about what makes an image work, what tells a story, what guides the eye. Where’s the emotion, the feeling and how do you translate that into an image, into color, into light. From these first two parts of the talk, we conclude by mentioning how despite all the linearity of time itself, as you grow older, you should really make an effort to step aside and look at the dots instead. Because life becomes way more fun when you learn to see it as a cloud of dots, in a non-linear way.

Biography:

Afonso Salcedo has been doing photography since he was a little kid and has always had an enormous passion for film and storytelling through images. He started working in the film industry in London, at Framestore, where he worked as a junior Technical Director in movies like Harry Potter 3 and Troy.

He returned to San Francisco, where he was born, after six years in the UK and went forth to work at Pixar Animation Studios for seven years, working on some of their most critically-acclaimed films. He most recently finished working at DreamWorks Animation as a senior artist.

Afonso was also the creator and co-director of the “It Gets Better... Love, Pixar” film, alongside a team of insanely talented co-workers to create one of the most well received short films in the It Gets Better campaign with over 1.4 million views on YouTube. Creating an image that touches people, tells a story, a mood, an emotion, is what drives him to film and photography. With a passion for cinematography and filmmaking, and a crazy amount of perfectionism and attention for detail, Afonso strives to make something visual that inspires viewers and connects with them in unexpected ways.

Afonso Salcedo has now opened his own film company, Sutro Studios (http://sutrostudios.com), based in San Francisco, CA and is working on several projects, including his first feature documentary. He feels he has no idea what he’s doing and loves every minute of it.